GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY: Acts 2:14, 36-41; 1 Pet 2:20-25; Jn 10:1-10

 

In today’s Gospel, employing two brief parables, Jesus reveals Himself as a selfless, caring “shepherd” who provides his sheep protection.  He calls his sheep by name and leads them out. This Sunday is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Today, the Church calls us to reflect on the meaning of God's call and to pray for vocations to the priesthood, the diaconate and the consecrated life, reminding us that the entire Christian community shares the responsibility for fostering vocations. Our parish and society can foster vocations if only we have good Christian families who cherish Christian values. Parents need to respect and encourage a child who is interested in becoming a priest or deacon or entering a consecrated life. They also need to encourage and actively support them in becoming altar servants, gift-bearers, lectors, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and ministers of hospitality.  On this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, let us begin, or continue, especially in these most stressful times for the Church, local and universal, to pray earnestly for continued conversion and perseverance in the Faith for our bishops, priests, deacons, those living a consecrated life, and all of the laity, for we are One Body and what one member suffers, all suffer.

We need to pray not just for vocations but for pastors who will have the courage to speak the truth. Today it is hard to hear the truth spoken because that is not what people would like to hear. Ours is an age that flourishes in compromise; steadfastness to the truth is hardly tolerated. Thus, pastors are often faced with the tension of either preaching the uncomfortable truth of God’s Word or watering it down to make it more agreeable to the listener. As it says in 2 Timothy 4:3, “The time is sure to come when people will not accept sound teaching, but their ears will be itching for anything new and they will collect themselves a whole series of teachers according to their own tastes.” Sadly, we are living in such times!

Those pastors who choose to pander to the congregation and tell them what they want to hear are robbing them of their right to receive “sound teaching”. They are no less than robbers.   

Today we don’t hear the topic of sin, which is the most important word in religion ever mentioned. Most of us attempt to skirt or soften the topic using a wish-washy euphemistic substitute. We preach consoling, encouraging and invigorating sermons but avoid making mention of sin because we fear that this would make our audience uncomfortable. We have transformed our funerals into canonization rituals while ignoring that one of the main reasons for a funeral is that the deceased sinner needs us to pray FOR him and not TO him. We hide sin under cover of every psychological concept or newly minted syndrome, thus taking away all culpability and liability from the individual.

The good news of the Lord’s death and resurrection means nothing if we don’t have a clear picture of our desperate sinful condition. Christ came to save us from our sins, not just to inspire us and make us feel good. Many of us priests have forgotten that we are called to be shepherds of souls and not just motivational speakers or counsellors. St Peter, in the first reading, fully understood his role as a shepherd of souls - convicting his audience of their sins, calling them to repentance, and saw his mission as participating in Christ’s mission to save his audience from this “perverse generation.” In saving souls, he knew he had to risk losing his audience’s approval and, even worse, losing his own life, which he did.

The second most important topic in the Bible is suffering and the cross. Suffering often leads either to resentment or despair. Many Protestant pastors would offer a Christianity without the cross - what is pejoratively known as the “gospel of prosperity” - and sad to say, many Catholic preachers have likewise jumped on the same bandwagon. The popularity of the prosperity gospel is understandable. Who would not wish for an alleviation of one’s pains and sufferings? The gospel which preaches the cross as inevitable is naturally unpopular.

St Peter spells out in the second reading: “The merit, in the sight of God, is in bearing punishment patiently when you are punished after doing your duty. This, in fact, is what you were called to do because Christ suffered for you and left an example for you to follow the way he took.” We all suffer to a greater or lesser degree, whether we like or not. But how we suffer and what we do with that suffering makes all the difference. Suffering for a Christian is a priceless opportunity to draw closer to the suffering Christ, to carry His cross and consciously share in His redemptive suffering.

Third, the Good Shepherd offers us objective truth instead of just one opinion, direction, or path among many. Living in an increasingly globalized and multicultural society, there is a great temptation to succumb to the heresy of relativism - that all truths - even those that seemingly contradict each other - are equally valid. Revealing a religion that promotes Satanic work is considered intolerance and as promoting disharmony. The true Shepherd offers us saving truth “so that they may have life and have it to the full.”

Now if this is what true shepherds are called to do what does our vocation as sheep entail? St John provides us with a mature image of the sheep. His are the sheep who recognize the shepherd’s voice and know how to distinguish between counterfeits and the real thing. His are sheep that are so tuned in to their shepherd that they will follow him, trusting him that he will bring them to no harm. His are the sheep who understand that they will enjoy true freedom only when they submit themselves to the authority of the Shepherd. And they do so knowing that only the Good Shepherd alone can offer them “life and have it to the full.” The pastors in the church are not exempt from being sheep within the fold of Jesus the Good Shepherd. As we pray for our shepherds in the church, the bishops and priests, that they will take after the heart of the Good Shepherd, let us also pray for ourselves that we will all have the confidence and faith to place our lives in the hands of the One who alone has assured us that we will be safe.